(CNN) - The Senate voted Tuesday against taking up a measure that would have imposed a two-year ban on legislative earmarks, a practice that critics have called an example of wasteful spending.

Legislators voted 56 to 39 in favor of considering a ban, but the measure needed 67 votes to pass. The senators were actually voting on whether to end debate on another matter to consider the earmark ban, but its defeat signals that senators are apprehensive about approving a ban - at least for now.FULL STORY

Washington (CNN) - One of the most bitterly contested issues facing the soon-to-be adjourned Congress takes center stage this week when military leadership is called to testify about repealing the military prohibition on openly gay troops serving.

(CNN) – Joe Scarborough, the MSNBC host and former conservative congressman from Florida, says its time for members of his party to get off the sidelines and express their true feelings about Sarah Palin.

"Republicans have a problem. The most-talked-about figure in the GOP is a reality show star who cannot be elected," Scarborough writes in a column for Politico out Tuesday. "And yet the same leaders who fret that Sarah Palin could devastate their party in 2012 are too scared to say in public what they all complain about in private."FULL POST

Washington (CNN) - A majority of U.S. service members surveyed do not care if the law banning openly gay and lesbian troops from serving is repealed, according to a source knowledgeable with the results of the Pentagon study. Members of Congress are to get an advance look at the study Tuesday.

The number opposing lifting the ban - known as "don't ask, don't tell" - fearing negative results "is very small when compared to those who say it will have positive or mixed results, or no effect at all," the source explained.

However, the source cautioned about taking the results as a true reflection of the entire force. The low number of respondents, just 28 percent of those who were sent the survey, means "the study only represents views, it doesn't mean everyone feels this way."FULL STORY

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Get ready for some heated rhetoric about how to contain the unsustainable national debt.

The spark will be lit by President Obama's bipartisan debt commission, which is set on Wednesday to vote on a final set of recommendations. That report will be an amended version of a plan put out three weeks ago by the panel's co-chairmen, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson.

What you hear this week is just the start of a long national conversation. Next year, Obama and Congress will attempt to turn talk into policies.FULL STORY

Washington (CNN) - President Obama will hold a meeting with congressional leaders from both parties on Tuesday, less than a month after Republicans won control of the House of Representatives during midterm elections.

The meeting, which is expected to last about an hour, is expected to address numerous topics, including whether Bush-era tax cuts should be extended beyond the end of this year as well as the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

Obama has called for Congress to extend lower tax rates for most Americans before the end of the year, when tax cuts enacted in the Bush administration are set to expire.FULL STORY

CNN: Obama to tackle issues with bipartisan congressional leaders
President Barack Obama will hold a meeting with congressional leaders from both parties on Tuesday, less than a month after Republicans won control of the House of Representatives during midterm elections. The meeting which is expected to last about an hour is expected to address numerous topics, including whether Bush-era tax cuts should be extended beyond the end of this year as well as the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

CNN Money: Senator introduces bill to extend jobless benefits
A Democrat-sponsored bill to extend unemployment benefits by one year was introduced in the Senate Monday, but it is likely to face stiff opposition from Republicans. The bill's sponsor, Senator Max Baucus, D-Mont., said in a statement that the proposed legislation would reauthorize benefits for nearly 800,000 out-of-work Americans who are about to exhaust their benefits next week. It would also extend benefits for 2 million more Americans facing the same fate at the end of the year, he said.